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July 30 Thursday Move Through Resistance

July 30, Thursday, we want to move through our own resistance to taking excellent care of ourselves.Moving our body in ways that strengthen our muscles, increase the flexibility of our joints, improve the functioning of our heart, and brighten our mood seems like a no-brainer. Yet we can find so many reasons to do anything but move. Today we will push through the limitations of our mind and get moving with a 5 set workout, with each set being 20 helicopter twists and 10 burpees, for a total of 100 helicopter twists and 50 burpees. Go slow and steady, but try to keep pushing through the whole workout. For the helicopter twists you stand with your feet shoulder width apart and hold your arms out to either side. You start to twist your whole torso from the waist keeping your spine and neck in alignment. Let your arms flop loosely and follow the twist. You can count each time you twist in one direction as one, so that 20 twists will have had 10 twists to the left and 10 twists to the right. For the burpees, start with your hands beside your feet and jump back, or walk back, so you are in the top of the push up plank position. Do a push up (if you can’t do a push up, use your knees and do a knee push up, or just skip if this is too much; jumping the feet back and forward without the push up is known as a squat thrust.) After the push up jump the feet (or walk) back up to the hands, and then jump straight up in the air and clap your hands over your head. Even if you skip the push up part, the burpees will still be a challenge. If you can’t jump overhead, at least clap hands over head. Your heart will really feel this workout and you should sweat, but afterwards you will feel alive and energized. Self care tip of the day is to increase your water intake by adding slices of lemon or a small amount of unsweetened cranberry or sweet tart cherry juice. They all make the water more delicious to drink, and help decrease inflammation.